The two-day event will teach hospitality workers how to use smartphones and social media to better showcase the city’s food scene.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Experience Fayetteville is launching a free two-day workshop aimed at helping local restaurants improve their food photography, social media strategy, and online marketing.
The Fayetteville Foodie Photography Workshop will take place July 28 and 29 and is open to restaurant owners, marketers, and hospitality professionals.
The event will be led by Austin-based culinary influencers Karen Reinsberg and Gavin Booth, the creators behind Couple in the Kitchen. Together, they have built a large following by creating food and restaurant content for social media.
Experience Fayetteville CEO Ryan Hauck said food can play an important role in shaping how visitors first connect with a destination.
“Food is a great way that visitors actually connect with the destination,” Hauck said. “It does drive visitation itself.”
The first day will include a Restaurant Content Masterclass at the Fayetteville Town Center and Cheers at OPO. Participants will learn how to take professional-looking photos and videos using their phones, with lessons focused on lighting, composition, styling, and content planning.
The second day will include guided content crawls at Fayetteville businesses. The morning session will stop at Little Bread Co., FayMosa, and Feed & Folly. An afternoon session will visit Maxine’s Taproom and Vetro 1925.
Feed & Folly Assistant General Manager Kennedy Cash said the restaurant would benefit from a stronger social media presence.
“I would love if we had more social media presence, too,” Cash said. “That’s something that I’ve been talking about for a while.”
Cash said social media is especially important in a college town, where many students and visitors may first learn about a restaurant online.
“A lot of the college kids that are coming in, they’re going to be experiencing Fayetteville through social media a lot first,” Cash said. “So it’s important for us to get our name out there, especially to people who are coming into Fayetteville for the first time.”
Experience Fayetteville said the workshop is part of its Destination Master Plan and is intended to strengthen the city’s culinary reputation while giving individual businesses practical marketing tools.